


Just a Haircut

by natigail



Series: Phan Reality One Shots [8]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Haircuts, M/M, One Shot, Reality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-05-17 06:40:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14827299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natigail/pseuds/natigail
Summary: “I was going back and forth, talking to Dan for weeks about: I should change my hair. I want to change my hair but what if people don’t like it? What if people stop watching me if I change my hair? It was such a stupid thing because it’s just a haircut.”Inspired by AmazingPhil's videoWhy I Changed My Emo Hair





	Just a Haircut

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoy it! Just some fluff and love to soothe the soul. Also, I love Phil’s new hair.

It was quite a stupid thing but because it was Phil, Dan couldn’t help finding it very endearing. They had been sitting on the sofa one evening, tour prep paused for the moment to watch a show together when Dan noticed that Phil wasn’t paying attention to the screen.

“Phil?” he asked softly but when he got no response, he picked up one of the throw pillows and flung it straight into Phil’s chest. He could have been mean and gone for the face, so he thought he was being nice overall.

Phil didn’t when he squealed with surprise and then gave Dan an accusatory glance. His mouth still hanging open in surprise a little, which was entirely ruining the mean look he was trying to send Dan.

“What was that for?”

“You didn’t answer. “

“Answer what?”

“I said your name in a questioning tone,” Dan explained.

Phil rolled his eyes, part annoyance but bigger part fondness. “You didn’t say anything.”

“Yes, I did because you’re not paying attention to the screen and I don’t want to have to rewind when you can’t keep up,” Dan teased.

There was another reason why Dan had broken Phil out of his contemplation. He knew Phil well and he knew that something observation or thought was due to spill out from him any moment. He had a certain idea face that Dan had become very familiar with over the years.

“I want to change my hair,” Phil said and then his hands twitched as if he desired to put them over his mouth to force the words back in.

“Okay? You can do that, you know? Why are you looking terrified?”

“Because it’s terrifying! I’ve had emo hair for years. It’s an AmazingPhil thing. It’s a me thing. I can’t change it… can I?”

“Well, I vowed to never give into the hobbit hair and look at me now,” Dan said and pointed at the mess of curls on top of his head. “I’ve never been happier with my hair, messy as it is. You get to decide what your hair should look like.”

“But the fringes, Dan!”

“I already jumped ship on that, Phil. You can do whatever you want. And if you’re worried about our viewers, I really wouldn’t be. Some of them might resent the change but I’m sure majority would be supportive of whatever you decide to do with your hair. Not that it should matter because the only opinion that matters on this is your own.”

“Yours matter too,” Phil muttered and grabbed hold of the pillow that Dan had thrown and held it in front of his chest.

“I like you regardless of what kind of hair you have, Phil.”

“Even the long hair? Be real.”

“It… was a look.”

Phil groaned and lifted the pillow to hide his face.

“I hate you,” Phil whispered against the pillow but as Dan reached over and pulled it down, he saw the opposite emotion in Phil’s eyes.

“Yeah, I can feel the hatred,” Dan commented with a low chuckle.

“You need to rewind,” Phil said and pointed to the screen. “I wasn’t paying attention and now neither were you.”

Dan rolled his eyes, let out a little sigh and obediently went back a few minutes. He knew the conversation of Phil’s hair wasn’t over but Phil clearly hadn’t settled on his opinion just yet. So Dan would give him the time he wanted to mull over it.

It turned out that Phil was mulling over it for quite longer than Dan had expected. Dan was usually the one who paced around and thought a decision over ten trillion times. Phil did it too sometimes but always for much more limited time periods. Eventually, he’d get fed up with the wondering and just spontaneously decide something.

Dan had expected a couple of days to pass but gradually the days turned into weeks and he almost became used to Phil coming to talk to him concerning his fears about changing his hair style and lifting the familiar fringe off his forehead. It became their new normal for a while.

Day.

“What if people don’t like it?”

“Phil, the people who matter like you for you, not your emo hair.”

After day.

“What if it looks horrible and no one will tell me because they’re all too polite and there’s nothing to do but waiting for it to grow back?”

“I’d tell you, Phil. Also, like you said, it would grow back.”

After week.

“What if people stop watching my channel if I don’t have my distinguished look anymore? I’m the only one who still has this hair. What if it dies without me?”

“Our fringes are literally immortalised in TATINOF, Phil. And people know your channel for your creativity and your personality; it’s not the hair. I promise.”

And week.

“What is I have an ugly forehead? Here, look at my forehead!”

“I know what your forehead looks like, Phil! It’s a forehead. Now stop shoving your hair in my eyes.”

And yet another week.

“Do you think I will like it? Like… what if I don’t like what I see when I look in the mirror?”

“It’s just hair. It’ll grow back if you really don’t like it. It’s better to try something and not like it than to keep wondering of what might have been.”

During Phil’s weeks of contemplations, Dan quickly got the sense of how Phil would land in making a decision, even if it seemed to take him ages to get there. When you spent so much time thinking about something, it was probably something you should attempt, just to avoid _what ifs_.

When they were taking promotional photos for the tour, Dan looked at Phil’s fringe with a little smile because he had a feeling that Phil would definitely make the decision to cut it before he went on tour. But that was okay and Dan didn’t want to rush the decision along, so he let it pass and he didn’t say anything to Phil. So their tour photos would look a little out-dated, so what?

Dan hadn’t realised just how much of a security blanket the fringe had been for Phil, but he shouldn’t really have been surprised. He used to straighten his own hair into submission and hiding behind the long fringe.

Now he was a lot happier, more carefree with hair messier and decidedly not straight.

Phil didn’t like change. When he committed to something, he committed all the way and he took good care of this things. If he had decided to let someone into his life, he was going to hold onto them with all his might, as well. Dan had always felt very blessed to stumble into Phil’s life in the oddest circumstances and Dan knew for sure that Phil had no intention of ever letting him go.

Dan was sat at his piano at home, practicing the piano piece that he would need to play for Interactive Introverts when Phil barged into the room with a gleeful expression on his face.

“I’m getting a haircut today. The hairdresser will be here in an hour. I’m doing it, Dan. I’m changing the hair.”

Dan had a smug response right at the tip of his tongue but it evaporated when he looked into Phil’s eyes, which looked unburdened and so damn happy.

“That’s great, Phil.”

“I’m still a bit scared,” Phil confessed and leaned his shoulder against the doorframe. “It feels a bit like shredding a lot of the old branding, you know. And I do know it’s more than branding. It’s our life but… the old London flat, our first books and TATINOF capturing our beginning and now finally both of us changing the iconic hair. When did so much time pass, Dan? I’m past 30. When did we grow up so much?”

Dan got off his piano stool and walked up to Phil to wrap him into a hug. Phil took a moment to reciprocate it but when he did he melted into Dan’s embrace and gripped his hands tightly at Dan’s side.

“I know what you mean,” Dan said in a low voice. There was no need to speak loudly when they were standing this close. “We never thought that we’d be doing a second world tour. It’s different. It’s like a new chapter of our lives. But Phil, it’s only going to get happier. Every year, we’ve gotten happier, right?”

“Right,” Phil agreed and he sounded a little choked up.

“If you feel it’s the right time to change your hair, then it probably because it is. You have a good sense of timing, you know.”

Phil hummed and leaned even more on Dan. Dan should be practicing but he held out a little longer and waited until Phil pulled back from the hug. Phil was the one who had starting to teach him that. Whenever Phil hugged someone, he liked to hold onto them until he could feel them pulling away. Now Phil had been in need of the support and Dan happily obliged.

“Thanks, Dan.”

“Of course.”

Dan went back to practicing and he purposely stayed by the piano until Phil called his name. He would admit he was excited to see what Phil had finally decided to go for, after he had been shoving different photos of different haircuts under Dan’s nose for the past too-many weeks.

When Dan walked into the room and saw Phil’s haircut, he just broke out into a big smile. Phil was looking a little nervous but he also looked very happy despite trying to keep his posing face.

“You look great,” Dan noted and because he couldn’t help himself, he had to walk up and mess up the styling. He nudged Phil’s new quiff twice before Phil managed to step back and Dan could almost hear the hairdresser roll his eyes.

“Hey! You’re messing up my hair!”

“Says the guy who likes to pull on my ringlets when he’s bored,” Dan shot back.

“It just got styled and you’re messing it up!” Phil protested and stepped around the bed so Dan couldn’t reach him as easily. “Back off.”

It was meant to sound at least a bit like a threat but it was hard to take it seriously when Phil was smiling while he was speaking.

“Do you like it? Really?”

“I do. I like it a lot, Phil. It suits you.”

“I like it. Like… I think I really like it, Dan,” Phil said, almost giddily.

“I thought you would. Bye, bye, emo hair.”

“Forever in our hearts,” Phil said and clutched a hand to his chest as if he was preparing to sing the national anthem. “It had been an honour to have you stick to my forehead.”

“Don’t make it weird.”

“It’s what I do and you love it.”

Dan didn’t argue with that and instead he just turned his head slightly as he let out a chuckle. He was just so happy that Phil liked the outcome of his decision. Another part of him was happy that both of them had now moved on from the emo fringe.

Dan had always had a bit of hair envy for Phil. When they had both been sporting fringes, he hated how Phil’s could be so easily straightened and stay that way while a slight bit of moisture would ruin his own. Phil’s head shape had just always made his hair fall nicely, in Dan’s opinion, though he may be just a little biased.

It took a whole lot of photos before Phil found one he was happy to share on social media and when he did, it expectedly created a big reaction with their viewers. Some were vocal about their mourning for the old haircut but those few were quickly drowned out by all the praise and compliments filling the comment section and the AmazingPhil tag across various social media.

Dan took a notice in how Phil carried himself a little more confidently over the coming days. He recognised it from himself and when he had embraced the hobbit hair. Phil might have been dwelling on the decision for a very long time but it had most certainly paid off in the end.

Technically, it was just a haircut. It shouldn’t be this big a deal. Dan sensed how Phil felt like he might have made way too big a deal about it once he had gone through with it. However, Dan could understand Phil’s reservations because he knew how Phil’s brain worked, at least to a degree, after all the years they had spent together.

For Phil, his hair had become a symbol and deciding to change it therefore became a big deal. It marked one of the last things leftover from the era that they had closed off gradually in the past couple of years.

It had been a very happy time, despite the occasional downs, and it was a lot to properly wave goodbye to that. But in a sense, they would never truly say goodbye to their younger selves. They wouldn’t be here, happy, together and doing something they loved, if it hadn’t been for those two dorks with horrible haircuts from back in the day.

Dan was immensely proud of Phil for daring to take the jump, embracing the change and his newfound confidence and do it despite all the worries of how people might think of it or him. Because this might just be a haircut but it symbolised something more to Phil.

**Author's Note:**

> [Reblog on tumblr](http://secretlywritingstories.tumblr.com/post/174504510136/just-a-haircut)
> 
>  
> 
> I wrote this immediately after watching the video but since I was on hiatus I have waited until now to post it. I know it's just a little fluffy one shot but I hope you enjoyed it anyway. The whole thing that Phil talked about in the video about his new haircut giving him confidence was just such a nice thing and fuck, I adore that man. I have a couple of phan dabbles coming out next week, though I might just post those on tumblr because of their short length. If you want to find everything I'm posting I'm [@secretlywritingstories](http://secretlywritingstories.tumblr.com) on tumblr.


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